Daniel Ricciardo believes he could have finished two places higher were it not for a mid-race red flag during the Mexico City Grand Prix.
Ricciardo recorded Scuderia AlphaTauri’s best result of the season with seventh at the flag after qualifying an impressive fourth.
It was a valuable result for the Faenza team as it climbed from 10th in the constructors’ championship to eighth courtesy of the six points the Australian scored.
However, he felt more was on offer prior to Kevin Magnussen crashing out midrace, triggering a 22-minute stoppage.
“Everything was actually working pretty well,” Ricciardo said of the opening stanza of the race.
“Honestly, the red flag… I don’t want to say it too selfishly because there was a big accident – and I believe a car failure, so nothing Kevin could do – as much as that hurt our race, I would like to think the strategy and everything was looking pretty smooth then.
“The main thing is he’s [Magnussen’s] okay and it obviously bunched everyone up and allowed some cars to use a medium tyre, which we didn’t have.
“At that point, it was probably a bit more nervous on the pit wall but to still come out with six points, and nearly eight points – we got very close to George [Russell] at the end – big picture, we have to be happy.”
Having slipped to seventh following the standing restart, Ricciardo closed on Russell in the final laps, mounting a challenge as they entered Turn 4 for the final time.
That was rebuffed and the Mercedes driver held on to sixth.
“At the start of the stint, I didn’t feel as good as towards the end,” Ricciardo said of the final phase of the race.
“I felt like it took me a little bit to get a rhythm with the tyre and then the last probably 10 laps I was able to start really pushing harder.”
Ricciardo had earlier dropped a spot to former team-mate Lando Norris, who executed a fine move around the outside at Turn 4.
The McLaren driver took the restart on a set of medium tyres, as did Russell ahead, though had better pace than the Mercedes who slipped back towards the pursuing Scuderia AlphaTauri.
“I probably didn’t expect to get that close,” Ricciardo said of the final lap battle with Russell.
“When you’re that close you’re like ‘oh we could have’, but he protected well into Turn 4.
“At one point I was trying to go on the outside but I could see we were both probably going to run off and had to abort mission.
“He did well to defend.
“Ultimately, just to be battling a Mercedes, that makes me more happy than just missing out on sixth.”
But while pleased, Ricciardo was left feeling there was more on offer had it not been for the red flag.
“It felt like we were, at least at that moment, I was like ‘this could be a nice, lonely race fifth place’, and I was okay with that,” he said of the race prior to Magnussen’s crash.
“I definitely think we could have been better than seventh without the red, but that’s racing.
“On the one hand, you could say unlucky but still, you can always be worse – the restart, we could have had a crash or something.
“So still, to come through, I’m happy.”
Scuderia AlphaTauri is now tied with Alfa Romeo Sauber on 16 points in the constructors’ championship but is ahead on countback courtesy of Ricciardo’s seventh in Mexico.
